


Just Add Water

by merellia



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Kidfic, M/M, Stilinski Family Feels, Wishbabies, vaguely post-Season Two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-06
Updated: 2015-02-06
Packaged: 2018-03-10 20:02:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3301769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merellia/pseuds/merellia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From that misbegotten epilogue to <i>Revenge of the Sith</i> when Padme called down wishbabies in her grief over Anakin’s corruption, to the recent season finale of <i>Big Bang Theory</i> when Howard and Bernadette had a wishbaby, to the subplot about the abduction of President Bessette-Kennedy’s wishbaby in <i>Call of Duty: Black Ops</i>, Stiles—and everyone who had ever watched a rom-com, or listened to Taylor Swift, or followed the Congressional debates about wishbaby suppressants in the Affordable Care Act—knew a wishbaby basket when he saw it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Add Water

**Author's Note:**

> I am both indebted to, and inspired by, all the writers in Hockey RPF fandom who have written wishbaby fics. Thank you!

“Stiles!”

At his dad’s shout, Stiles mumbles tiredly, patting the space next to him on the bed. Cold. So Derek had been long gon—

“Stiles. Get down here,” his dad bellows, sounding odd; not angry, but weird. It was enough to jerk Stiles the rest of the way out of his sleepy haze and had him grabbing the sweatpants discarded on the floor by the side of the bed. He pulls them on and looks around hastily for his shirt, wherever Derek had tossed it after tugging it off Stiles last night.

“RIGHT NOW.”

Stiles gives up the search for his shirt and runs for the stairs, bare-chested, barely saving himself from a headfirst tumble down them before he fetches up at their feet, and stumbles over to where his dad stands in the front doorway. “Yeah, I’m here, I’m here, what. . . .” he begins, gaze falling to the basket at his dad’s feet.

A wishbaby basket. Woven of golden reeds and filled with soft gray blanket, its propeller still spun with an idle slowness. Stiles had never seen one so close-up before, but recognizes it immediately; everyone would. From that misbegotten epilogue to _Revenge of the Sith_ when Padme called down wishbabies in her grief over Anakin’s corruption, to the recent season finale of _Big Bang Theory_ when Howard and Bernadette had a wishbaby, to the subplot about the abduction of President Bessette-Kennedy’s wishbaby in _Call of Duty: Black Ops_ , Stiles—and everyone who had ever watched a rom-com, or listened to Taylor Swift, or followed the Congressional debates about wishbaby suppressants in the Affordable Care Act—knows a wishbaby basket when he sees it.

“Oh,” he breathes, dropping to his knees beside the basket, staring at the plump, round face of the sleeping baby swaddled within it. His eyes drop to the silver nameplate that identifies the parents.

“Ohhhhhh,” he says again, reading it. _Stiles Stilinski and Derek Hale_. His heart squeezes.

“Son,” his dad says heavily.

In the basket, the baby yawns, and drags Stiles’ attention back as dark eyes open and blink up at him.

“Hey, baby,” Stiles says, and reaches out to touch the baby’s pink cheek with a finger. 

The baby’s nose wrinkles. It sneezes.

And now Stiles is looking at a baby with a lot more . . . fur.

“You have a lot of explaining to do, son,” his dad says.

* * *

“So, let me get this straight,” John says as he sits on the recliner, overwhelmed by Stiles’ blurted explanation on the doorstep. He leans forward intently, hands on his knees, but Stiles can hardly spare a glance from the baby, whose fur had receded in the moments after her sneeze. She had then promptly kicked aside her blanket, revealing her gender and everything else to the broad world, motivating John to move the conversation inside.

“Look at her _toes_ ,” Stiles says, grinning as he tickled the bottom of his baby’s foot and watched them curl. “They are so _tiny_!”

“Stiles. Son.” John tries to catch Stiles’ attention, heart breaking as he watched his son—his underage, high school student, unemployed, unwed child, and these thoughts hit him like little daggers—as he watches his son watch his daughter with a rapt, joyful expression.

Stiles nods earnestly, looking up long enough to give John his best “I’m listening and I’m responsible face,” which John has seen so many times, and so many times recently when Stiles had come home late, or explained why he had a restraining order issued against him, or lied about the bruises he’d shown up with last week. “Yeah, Dad.” The bright morning light that fills the living room casts the fading bruise on his cheekbone into lurid color.

John says patiently, because the issues deserved clarification, amplification, and a whole host of other things that can not only lead to yelling and misery, but also jail time. “You’re in a sexual relationship with Derek Hale. Who is a werewolf. And over—significantly over—eighteen.”

“Yeah, Dad,” Stiles repeats with a distinct lack of concern, his gaze irresistibly drawn back to his wishbaby. He touches the tip of one wiggling toe. “She even has her own _toenails,_ ” he gushes.

John’s frayed patience wears thin. “I thought you were taking suppressants, Stiles!” He can feel his face reddening in frustration, not the least because he knows that it is not the best time to be having this conversation; that Stiles needs support, not recrimination. But it is so _hard_ to see his son amid the ruins of his former life, smiling and oblivious.

“I was!” Stiles retorts, momentarily distracted from his daughter. “I have been ever since I started babysitting for Aunt Natka when I was twelve—you know that,” and John does, remembering the infatuated expression on Stiles’ face the first time he’d seen his baby cousins, an expression nearly identical to the one he wore now as he returned to tickling the baby’s foot, an expression that had had John delaying Natka and Michael’s dinner plans so he could take Stiles to the drugstore for his first suppressants.

“And you haven’t missed any, or forgotten any,” John continues as he tries to piece the situation together.

“No,” Stiles says, wrapping up the baby’s foot back in the blanket and cuddling her close.

“So that Derek Hale—who is a _werewolf_ —has been having unprotected sex with you?” 

Stiles shakes his head, tucking up the baby more securely. “He told me he was barren.”

The stab of pity that flashes through John is immediately smothered by a burst of anger. “He _lied_ to you?”

“No!” Stiles exclaims, clearly offended. “He wouldn’t do that. He says he was barren. He says he’d tried to have a baby, a bunch of times, with different partners, and his wishes never worked.” Stiles draws in a breath. “Oh, I have to call him. I have to let him know, right now.”

“Stiles, wait,” John says, and takes a breath as Stiles pauses in the act of standing up, then settles down again. “You should think about what you want from this,” he says carefully. “What you can do. You know I will support you, but you are still in high school. You have no job, nor does Hale, from what I understand. You’re not married. It might be in her best interests if you give her up for adoption.”

* * * 

In the moments just before Derek’s phone rings, he is staring at the burnt rafters above, grudgingly contemplating the awfulness of getting up early in the morning, of leaving Stiles’ bed, of the alpha’s mark on the remains of his front door, and of the inevitability of eating a raw pop-tart for breakfast when he really likes them toasted. Maybe, when he moves, he will buy a toaster.

Just as he begins dwelling on the possibilities of electricity, his phone sings at him: “You hear him howlin’ around your kitchen door, but you better not let him in!” Derek rolls his eyes before snagging his phone from the crumpled pile of his pants before it could get to howling at him, too. “What,” he grunts at Stiles, then winces at the high-pitched shrieking immediately assaults his ears.

“Derek!” Stiles’ voice sounds both muddled and frantic over distorted wailing. “Derek, can you hear me?” His voice fades away for a moment, mumbling something drowned out by continued screams, which only quiet momentarily before picking up strength again as Stiles finishes with, “. . . a wishbaby. You need to get here right now.” There is a rustle, and the shrieking in the background increases in volume, adding distinct notes of outrage to its plaint. “Um. Maybe get some diapers first.”

The room falls silent as Stiles ends the call, the wailing cutting off abruptly, and Derek stares at his phone. So Stiles had had a wishbaby—it would probably have red hair like Lydia’s, Derek decides in some bitterness as he slides out of his sleeping bag and begins pulling on his pants. And Scott and Lydia are, he determines after checking the time on his phone, in class already; Lydia is probably refusing to accept Stiles’ calls.

Although annoyed, he does stop by a drugstore on the way to Stiles’, and picks up a packet of diapers sized for new babies. After some thought, he adds some ready-made formula and a bottle, balancing the last atop the stack.

The cashier gives him a once-over when he puts his items on the counter, and flicks a glance at his left hand before she smiles. “Stuff for a niece or nephew?” she asks chattily, ringing up the items.

“No,” he says, irritated by both her demeanor and her morning cheer. When her smile slides away into the beginnings of disapproval, he scowls at her, takes his change and bag, and stalks back out to the Camaro, tossing the bag into the passenger seat before heading on to Stiles’ home.

Thankfully, his arrival at the Stilinskis’ is not heralded by a living siren, but when he knocks on the door, Stiles opens it and grabs hold of Derek’s leather jacket, tugging him into the house as he hisses, “Thank fu—god you’re here. I had to tell Dad _everything_

Before Derek can even wonder what “everything” entails, he realizes that Stiles smells like babies, in both the stinky and the sweeter of ways. He relieves Derek of the plastic grocery bag, rooting through it with a sigh of relief as he finds the formula as well as diapers, his babble overriding any attempt at a response from Derek. “I hadn’t even thought—thank you. She’s asleep at the moment; I used a kitchen towel, but I don’t know how absorbent it really is,” he continues, voice low, pulling Derek into the living room after him. “And she’s sleeping, so we need to be quiet. There she is,” he says proudly, gesturing to a plastic laundry basket atop the coffee table, a bundle inside it. 

Stiles’ father sits nearby, wreathed in the scents of anger and disapproval and the hoppy tang of beer. “Mr. Hale,” he says coldly as Derek approaches the laundry basket at Stiles’ urging.

“Sheriff,” Derek says uncertainly, then looks into the basket. A dozing, plump baby nestles inside, her cheeks covered with a fine down of brown fur.

“I think she has your hair,” Stiles says, settling down on the couch and looking up at Derek with a smile.

Derek knows he looks poleaxed, but all he can do is say, “What,” as he looks down at the—his—his and Stiles’ wishbaby. 

Stiles’ brows knit together in transparent confusion. “She looks like you?” he says uncertainly. “I mean. Being a werewolf and all, for one, and also she has your chin, I think.” 

“She’s ours,” Derek says, still stunned. He reaches into the basket, so close to touching the baby that he can feel the puffs of her breaths.

Stiles shifts nervously. “Yeah, the basket’s over there,” he says, gesturing to where it has been set by Stiles’ dad’s chair. “My name and then yours on the plate.” He pauses, then blurts, “Anyway, whose do you think it would be, if not yours? I haven’t—haven’t been seeing anyone except you.”

Derek is too unsettled to beat about the bush, flicking a glance up at Stiles and finding him caught between irritation and curiosity. “Lydia’s.”

Stiles winces, and Derek looks back down to the makeshift crib as Stiles continues. “Okay, yeah, I know. I deserve that. But,” his voice falters, though Derek doesn’t turn away from the baby. “Wishbabies only come when the relationship is mutual. Lydia . . . isn’t interested in me.”

Derek shrugs. “You know I’m, I haven’t . . .” he trails off, staring at his baby girl. Her lashes are long, like Stiles’. He wonders if her eyes will share his color, too.

“Stiles,” interrupts Stiles’ father, his tone pointed.

Looking up again, Derek catches Stiles glaring at his father before he turns back to Derek. He takes a breath, lets it out slowly. “So, um. Obviously I had to tell Dad about werewolves. He has some questions for you. But he also,” and Stiles swallows, adams’ apple bobbing, scent souring into something sick-smelling. “He also thinks that . . . I should give her up. For adoption.”

“I’ll take her,” Derek says immediately, fiercely. “ _I_ want her.”

Stiles now glares at him, crossing his arms tightly. “I want her, too! If you can’t—then somehow _I_ wished her here, and I _want_ her. But,” he deflates a bit, his scent shifting into sadness. “I’m still in school, as Dad pointed out, and I don’t have a job, and, uh—no offense, dude, but you live in a burnt-out wreck.”

“What?” Stiles’ father exclaims.

“He’s been living in the Hale House. And in that abandoned train car near the cemetery,” Stiles adds, ruthless with the truth.

Caught between anger, hurt, and a delirious excitement to the point that he feels almost nauseous from the churning emotions, Derek scowls. “I’ll rent someplace better. I was already thinking about it.”

“Because of the alphas, right,” Stiles says, shrewd. “I don’t want our daughter anywhere near that.”

Stiles’ dad sits up straight. “What are the alphas?”

Stiles shakes his head, though his expression eases as he sees Derek slip a finger into their girl’s hand; her claws are tiny pinpricks when she clenches her fingers tightly around Derek’s, and he feels his world expanding, brightening, for the first time in more than half a decade.

His voice full of irritation, Stiles’ father says sharply, “Don’t dismiss me, Stiles, I want an answer right now. What are the alphas?”

Stiles says tightly, “ _An_ alpha is the leader of a pack of werewolves. I already told you that. Derek’s an alpha. There may be a pack of them around, too.”

Derek looks down at his daughter’s sleeping face as she smacks her lips together. “Don’t know much about them. Just.” He pauses, then adds reluctantly, “They sometimes come to places where pack leadership is unstable.”

Restless, agitated, Stiles stands up. “I want her. I want her, I want to keep her, and I think keeping her here will be safer.”

Derek looks up at Stiles, grim. “I’ll help you. Whatever you need—money, whatever. I’ll help. And. I’ll marry you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Should I continue, or is this enough? Let me know what you think! :)


End file.
